In 2006, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching chose WIlliam Felice, a political science professor at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, as it’s Florida Professor of the Year. He is now retired, but if he were still teaching […]
Zakaria: The nation’s policy on classified documents and “secrecy” is “out-of-control”
As is often the case, Zakaria makes a lot of sense here: What should we think of the fact that Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and now Mike Pence have all turned out to have classified material sitting in their houses? […]
Teaching John Henry Newman’s “What is a University”
Once again I am teaching “Created and Called for Community,” Messiah University’s first-year core course. Today I taught an excerpt from John Henry Newman‘s 1852 book The Idea of a University. If you are a longtime reader of this blog, […]
What is popular this week at Current?
Here are the most popular features of the week at Current: Here are the most popular posts of the last week at The Way of Improvement Leads Home blog:
REVIEW: On the Flattening of Jim Crow History
A Marxist political scientist, and a member of the last generation to experience segregation, tells his story
Mintz: History should be relevant, but not at the expense of nuance and complexity.
Check out Steven Mintz’s piece at Inside Higher Ed. Anyone who reads this blog will know that I agree with him. I’ve staked a lot on Mintz’s claim in the title of this post A taste: I understand that at […]
The National Prayer Breakfast is next week. “The Family” is not running it.
Some of you may remember Jeffrey Sharlet’s The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. Most people learned about “The Family” (or The Fellowship) from the 2019 Netflix series based on the book. I reviewed the Netflix […]
Evangelical roundup for January 26, 2023
What is happening in Evangelical land? Evangelicals in Cambodia celebrate 100 years. More on an evangelical church in Boston engaging Black theology. Evangelical and other Protestant views on abortion. LeCrae on YouTube comments: And he is doing free shows in […]
Pope Francis: Homosexuality is “not a crime…but it’s a sin”Â
Francis recently spoke to the Associated Press: A taste: Pope Francis criticized laws that criminalize homosexuality as “unjust,” saying God loves all his children just as they are and called on Catholic bishops who support the laws to welcome LGBTQ […]
The National Endowment for the Humanities announces a new round of grant winners
Here are few that caught my eye: Azusa Pacific University: Outright: $149,910[Humanities Initiatives at Hispanic-Serving Institutions]Project Director: Nori HenkProject Title: Engaging Ethnic Studies and the HumanitiesProject Description: A three-year curricular development project to create and pilot three new ethnic studies […]
The integrity of history education in colleges and universities is under threat
Jim Grossman, the executive director of the American Historian Association, and Jeremy C. Young, the senior manager for free expression and education at PEN America, weigh-in on attempts by state legislatures to influence what happens in K-12 history classrooms. Here […]
What can we learn from Antonio Gramsci?
Here is a taste of Jacobin‘s Daniel Denvir’s interview with Yale labor historian Michael Denning: DANIEL DENVIR: This argument has implications for what has often been called “false consciousness”: the question of what to make of people holding beliefs that […]
The Senate loves Taylor Swift
During today’s the bipartisan Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Ticketmaster, several United Senate senators quoted Taylor Swift lyrics: Watch:
Ed Ayers in the “burned-over district”
The historian and his wife Abby recently toured “the quiet farmlands and serene towns along the Erie Canal” once known as the “burned-over district.” As Ayers writes in this piece at Bunk: “Religious revivals, reform movements, and political conflict had […]
Will Kevin McCarthy last more than 66 days as Speaker of the House?
66 days. That’s how long Didius Julianus lasted as Roman emperor in 193 C.E. As historian Edward Watts notes, he “ran out of things to give his allies.” Here is a taste of his piece at Zocalo: Julianus was so […]
The adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb
I am looking forward to watching the documentary “Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb“ Here is the trailer: Lizzie Gottlieb, the daughter of Robert Caro’s editor Bob Gottlieb, recently spoke with Literary Hub’s Lisa Liebman.. […]
Can pro-lifers on abortion and Democratic Socialists work together in Brazil?
Check out this very interesting piece at Jacobin by historian Travis Knoll: In short, [Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva] respects religion without instrumentalizing or being instrumentalized by it. Such alliances have come with serious challenges, especially on sexual […]
Evangelical roundup for January 23, 2023
What is happening in Evangelical land? More on the contractual relationship between Trump and evangelicals. And here. Evangelical support for Trump in South Carolina is “softening.” A Boston evangelical church is facilitating conversations on Black theology and evangelicalism. Evangelicals resettlement […]
Sunday night odds and ends
A few things online that caught my attention this week: Jill Lepore on why the January 6th Committee Report is a “mess” Should colleges take political positions? A. Philip Randolph Turning to the 1990s for the roots of GOP dysfunction. […]
